Cardinal Keeler Critiques Report of Bioethics
Council
WASHINGTON (April 1, 2004) --
Cardinal William Keeler said today's report by the President's Council on
Bioethics "deserves attention from all concerned about technological
abuse of human life."
Cardinal Keeler praised the Council's support for banning specific activities
that demean human dignity, such as creating human/animal hybrids; placing
human embryos in the bodies of animals, or in women's wombs for purposes other
than a live birth; and the buying, selling or patenting of human embryos.
The Cardinal called on Congress to strengthen the Council's recommendations
for monitoring in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics to prevent harm to women
and children.
But Cardinal Keeler also said two Council recommendations raise serious
questions: its support for banning the use of embryos in research beyond a
certain number of days in their development, and its support for a ban on
"conceiving a child" using procedures such as cloning. Laws against
human cloning, he said, should not be based on whether researchers intend to
place the resulting embryo in a woman's womb, but should simply ban the
cloning procedure.
In June 2003, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops was invited by
the Council to present testimony on the issues to be addressed in this report.
This testimony is available at www.usccb.org/prolife/issues/bioethic/embryo/test61203.htm.
Cardinal Keeler is Chairman of the USCCB Committee for Pro-Life Activities.
This is the text of his statement:
"Today the President's Council on Bioethics released a report on
reproductive technologies that deserves attention from all concerned about
technological abuse of human life.
"Most welcome is the Council's support for banning specific activities
that demean human dignity: creating human/animal hybrids; placing human
embryos in the bodies of animals, or in women's wombs for purposes other than
a live birth; buying, selling or patenting human embryos.
"Also welcome are recommendations for monitoring in vitro fertilization (IVF)
clinics, to prevent harm to women and children. These proposals should be
strengthened by Congress.
"Unfortunately, two Council recommendations raise serious questions.
"First, the Council favors banning the use of embryos in research beyond
a certain number of days in their development. Notably, members did not agree
on the number of days, or on the reason for this policy. Some believe such a
ban would be better than the current situation, in which federal law does not
ban privately funded embryo research at any stage. Others want to use this
policy to weaken current laws on federally funded research, which respect the
human embryo at every stage. The decisive fact is that human life is a
continuum from the one-celled stage onward. Any cutoff point after this event
is arbitrary – providing no principled reason not to extend the time limit
for destructive research, once the precedent is established. We should not
start down this road, but explore ways to discourage research that attacks any
human life.
"Second, the Council recommends a ban on ‘conceiving a child' using
procedures such as cloning, or the use of eggs derived from fetal tissue or
embryonic stem cells. However, ‘conceiving a child' according to the Council
means only the act of creating an embryo "with the intent to transfer it
to a woman's body to initiate a pregnancy." A cloning ban based on what a
researcher may ‘intend' to do with an embryo after cloning occurs is, first
of all, unenforceable. More importantly, it misstates where the wrong lies in
such procedures. Human cloning is wrong because it treats human life as an
object of manufacture – not because a researcher, having created the
embryonic human, may "intend" to allow him or her to survive. These
procedures should simply be banned."
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Office of Communications
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194 (202) 541-3000
April 01, 2004 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops